201 Days In 15 Acts
by ProfessorProstitute
Summary: Everything's okay, until it isn't. The story of how it takes a near death experience for the smartest idiot in the world to realize he's in love. Alex/Hank slash.


**i.**

It's a day for relaxation and rest, as Charles put it. "You're still kids," he admonishes, wiping the suds from the dishes on a clean towel hanging from his waistline. "Go out and do something; shopping, football, driving. Anything." He's adamant to get them all out of the house, and all of them are smart enough to read through the lines and that today, Charles and Erik will not simply "play chess".

So they take Charles' advice and find an old pigskin, cradled in a milk-crate on a high shelf in the garage. Hank insists that he's never played football before, which Alex doesn't doubt, but nevertheless, they're all recruited on to teams with Alex and Raven on one side and Sean with Hank on the other.

Alex opens his mouth to lament about playing with a girl, but with ease and a light clicking sound, suddenly Raven is no longer Raven and rather Sonny Jurgensen looking, with his 5'11", 200 pound build.

Sean instantly whines. "No fair!" but Hank clears his throat and his sheepish smile is full of newly grown fangs, so Sean shuts his mouth. They think for a moment on how to set up a field before Hank and Alex set about blasting and clawing four equidistant crevices into the grass. And with that, they're ready to play.

**ii.**

They're at least twenty minutes into the game when Raven declares they have to break for water. No one really minds, as the sun is hot and the terrace, with all its shade beckons them. Hank had the foresight to bring out a large plastic jug full of water and four cups so they thank him and take their places at a glass table under an open-armed umbrella. Life is great, Raven mutters into her glass as she flutters back into her usual blue self, and Sean echoes with a hear-hear sort of cry and Alex can't bring himself to disagree.

It's the first real fun he's had in a long time. The first time since prison had he really been able to be a kid, now that he thought about it. Sean disappears for a few minutes before coming out wielding a battery powered FM radio. He fiddles with it on the table before it queues in on a station, and Raven nearly flips out of her chair screeching, "No, no, no, don't turn it _I love __this __song_." and she's up and twisting, grabbing at Sean's hands, pulling herself in and out of his arms in complex circles and laughter bubbles to Alex's lips as he watches Sean try to do an Elvis looking move to the beat, but fail miserably, almost bring them both down. The atmosphere is so infectious, Alex sees Hank crack a toothy grin and rap his claws in tempo on the table.

Alex downs the rest of his water and shoots up, popping his shoulders, pretending to play the saxophone along with the radio and it's a grand old time. Raven pulls Hank reluctantly to his feet as the song fades, giving way to a new one with swinging beats and he doesn't protest much when she loops her fingers in the spaces between his claws. The blue on blue complements each other like a match made in heaven, and Alex stops in that second and realizes he's no longer having fun and he doesn't know why.

**iii.**

The day teeters on and, after another round of halfhearted football on Alex's behalf, Sean puts out the brilliant idea of climbing the old oak tree on the south half of the estate. Raven voices some form of protest, but Alex shoos her off. "It'll be fun. _Live a little_, Raven." and she crosses her arms over her chest and 'harumphs,' accompanied by an eye roll, but Alex doesn't give a damn. He spins on his heel and Sean's close at hand giggling about something or other but all Alex can think is stupid Hank and his stupid blue fur, his stupid intelligence (which makes sense to him, somehow), and his stupid _stupid _manners and crush on Raven, who Alex reasons, is just as stupid as Hank. Everyone's stupid, he concludes.

Raven's calling out about how the tree is dangerous and how Charles had forbid them when they were younger to even go near it and Alex spins about and is ready to yell back about having blue balls when suddenly the world is tumbling and -

woah.

When did the ground get so close?

**iv.**

Hank feels his feet leave the ground and he's never been more thankful for super-speed in his life. On all fours, it feels like he never touches the ground and his mouth is moving faster than his legs, _ohmygod. _Alex groans unintelligibly and shakes his head like the rocking of a wicker bassinet and fumbles to push him off. I'm fine, he insists, I'm fine Bozo and you can get off me now. But Hank really doesn't want to, looking into Alex's piercing blue eyes and finding them start to cloud, his pupils sinking into an iris abyss. His mind rushes with a hundred million different medical prognoses and diagnoses but Alex rolls out of his arms and lays spread-eagle in the grass, clutching his head and smiling a cocky smile.

Sean's cooing about Alex being a klutzy-son-of-a-bitch, but Raven is down on her knees asking Alex how many fingers she's holding up and what day it is and what his full name was.

Two – but is a thumb really a finger?

June 15th..

Alexander Eugene Summers.

**v.**

Alex slinks away much to the others' protesting but he reasons that all he needs is some time to calm down and yes, thank you Hank, I know how to treat a concussion – stop touching me. It's not like he hasn't been on his own for two and a half years, and it's not like he never had a concussion in prison. He doesn't need anyone babying him or taking care of him, no sir. He's fine.

Well. The world spins on it's side a bit, but that's to be expected initially with head injuries he's learned over the years; as long as he doesn't go to bed for awhile he'll be fine. He clamors into the kitchen and fetches a rather healthy bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes and after a few futile attempts of trying to grab the milk out of the fridge (funny, there wasn't three milks this morning if he remembered right) he decided dry was the best way to go.

More ends up on the floor and counter than in his mouth, and maybe, Alex thinks, he should have taken up Hank's advice for a check-up in the lab. But then he thinks again and gags on his cereal.

**vi.**

He doesn't know for how long he's been sitting on the ledge of the window, fingers woven between the flakes of the cereal like roots in the dirt, but he figures if no one's come looking for him yet, he's alright on time and yeah so what if he misses something important like...like – well he really can't think of what's so important on a day off, but Alex bets that no one would need him there anyhow. Not when Charles has someone like Hank, who can solve quadratic formulas backwards in his sleep; like Erik, who's so diverse in the arts of protection that Charles wouldn't even need to lift a finger because Erik would do _anything_; like Raven, who could adapt herself to be anyone and get anything for her brother (not unlike Darwin, Alex remembers, and his heart pangs); even Sean has a purpose and at least his powers have never killed anyone.

All I do is destroy, thinks Alex, and I can't do anything else. Not math, not flying, not metal bending, not being smart, not even being nice and he thinks of all the times he's hurt Hank with barbed words and a rapier tongue. The bowl slips from in between his fingers in a lapse moment of concentration yet he can't bring himself to care, no, not right now. It doesn't matter anyhow. People are always there, coddling with their malice filled eyes, "Poor Alex. Never can do anything right." and they'll pick up the cereal, the bodies, the rubble, whatever accident of the day it is, and they'll pat his head all while muttering, "Fuck up, what a fuck up." under their breaths, blanketed by snake tongues forked with gleaming poison.

Hands.

Suddenly hands.

Enveloping him, covering him, cradling him, patting him – hands with fingers stretched like spiders legs, crawling up and down his body and he's screaming I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'LL BE GOOD but no one's listening no one's ever listening not even his own brain. His mouth won't even work, vomiting out groans and wet gargles. Stop get off me I'll promise I'll be good, Alex sobs, with fat hot tears trickling down his face and he's back in prison again but with the bars replaced by his body and he's trapped – claustrophobic – _stop touching me _he feels his powers begin to lurk like angry jungle cats, brimming at the surface and he's going to let loose like a cannon and _oh god_ what if I kill someone he screams in his head but –

**_Sleep my son_**, a voice not his own speaks.

And so he does.

**vii.**

He carves his way out of sleep crusted eyes and awakes to crying.

"What's wrong with him?" and Alex wants to yell back nothing let me up let me out where am I, but he settles back to sleep.

Sleep is always the best way to avoid drama.

**ix.**

The next time he opens his eyes, as if by magic, he's cocooned in thick fleece blankets. Alex makes a garbled grating sound and, thank god, his mouth and brain seem to be reattached and he's no longer a broken marionette. Sitting up – gingerly, gingerly, he feels the nausea rearing its ugly head in the pits of his stomach – he takes his surroundings into account before deducing he's in Hank's lab on a shabby excuse for a bed. The curtains are propped open with golden hooks on the wall and sliver of moonlight shining through illuminates the mess of papers and cords on the floor and scientific gibberish scrawled across the papers make no sense to Alex until he spies his name on a paper and makes a move to grab it.

Pain.

It's a wonder, he laughs around a three inch thick tube, how he didn't notice the tangle of wires blooming from his skin, rooting him to the wall where machines beep and hiss in a medical symphony, his heart setting the tempo, his breath providing the percussion. So he sets to unchaining himself from his bindings, drawing globs of blood as he unsheathes the rapier needles from the crook of his elbow and the veins spindling down his arms; the suction cups attached to his temples come off well enough, but he's stuck with a tube in his throat and he can't just parade around garnished only in underwear (which he supposes will be an interesting enough topic to bring up in the morn to someone; "Say – how _did _all my clothes get off?") He notes however, with a small nod towards serenity, that his tube – respirator, his brain supplies, and he's caught between deadpanning and laughing on how it's probably the only medical babble he remembered from Hank's rants – is attached to an accordion-style filter on wheels.

Freedom, he cheers, but he winces as the mangled words bring him pain and wonders how long this stupid thing has been down his throat. Laced with trepidation, Alex's feet grace the floor and he urges himself push push push while he crumbles to the ground, tearing the bedsheets with him but it's a start. He reaches for the plug, powering the respirator and yanks it from the wall and suddenly his brain is racing _oh god oh god I can't breath _before his lungs kick in and he quells the urge to vomit. Alex braces himself on the stand, sucking in gulps of air between the cracks on either side of his mouth and it's hard but by God he's no quitter.

He garbs himself in the sheet and it forms around him like a robe and he thinks I am the lord of sick and the dying – left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. When he grabs hold of the doorknob, he feels as though he's the lead actor, center stage, shaking a man's hand, _I'd like to accept this on behalf of the academy _thank you, thank you, hold your applause. He inches it open and – blue fur. Blue fur _everywhere_.

Then a whisper. "You're awake..."

A gaping jaw.

A painful smile.

And everything's right again.

**x.**

It's not until several days, and one tubeless mouth later and many tears, that they sit Alex down and explain it all to him. And by they, he really means they: Raven and Sean, Erik and Charles, Hank, and even Moira's there for some odd reason, patting him on the leg and giving him well-wishes. And there's no bush beating as Charles starts to voice, but Hank takes charge with: "Your brain hemorrhaged."

What?

"In layman's terms," Hank points to a diagram several times and Alex jaw drops a little as he realizes it's his own brain, oh my God, a picture of his very own brain. "When you fell, you actually broke your skull – a linear fracture, usually nothing major but –," he circles a portion of the picture in red marker, "Right here – see? – you've been walking around with _several_ linear fractures and, well, think of it like a glass plate. When you throw it around too many times and it chips, what happens?"

"It breaks." Intones Sean.

Hank huffs out a little breath, "Thank you, _Alex._" and Sean squeaks out an apology before Hank continues with: "Precisely – it breaks. Not so with your case, however, whereas you merely chipped out a miniscule piece of you skull and it warranted bleeding. The bleeding was constant, but slow, which is why you were fine and able to walk for the time you were. However, when it pooled, it created a large spot of blood," he raps on the image with his claws, "hematoma - which caused you to lose motor functions, hallucinate, and ultimately lapse into a coma."

Alex processes all of this and with upturned lips stutters, "At l-l-least I'm okay now, right?" and can't understand why Hank's smile doesn't quite meet his eyes.

**xi.**

Alex, on Charles' orders, had been confined to the house only and mandated to skip out on any and all training exorcizes. The weeks span long and tedious and Alex can't help but feel like he's going to blow the canopy off of his fourposter bed with a well timed, accidental energy blast – so he spends his time mulling over Hank.

Hank.

Hank.

The name rolls off his tongue placing emphasis on different syllables before he decides that, okay, maybe something happened in the two months he was under that no one's really telling him and yeah, he could go to Sean for the lowdown, but straight from the source is always so much better. So he meanders down to the lab on day forty-seven of his 'probation,' of sorts and sits on one of the lab tables with a hey Beast hows it going and he doesn't even get a nod.

"I'm _t-talking _to you." Alex huffs and non-comically Hank grunts before muttering shoo fly don't bother me and Alex pretends like it doesn't hurt. He jumps off the table – I bet you wish I was still in a coma, don't you Bozo? - and stomps out of the lab.

He misses the look of utter pain and misery, painted upon a furry blue canvas.

**xii.**

"You almost died, you know."

As far as conversation starters went, it was one of the more interesting ways Alex has had his breakfast in a very long time. A gagged _Yer shittin' me_ chokes out of his throat and Hank sets down his immense cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, rake rake raking his claws through his wild mane. A terse air settles around them and Hank downs spoonfuls of food too keep his mouth from blithering on like madmad with a proverbial knife thinking, it's make or break Hank. Make or break.

"What do you mean I a-almost _died_?"

Hank shakes his head, "No...no, I shouldn't be telling you this. This is stupid." and he makes a move to leave but Alex's two-handed taut grip around his wrist stops him with urging eyes. "When you...when you went into...Well, okay – no. Argh."

Overcome by some swell of emotion, Alex grazes his knuckles over the fur on Hank's forearm and says, "Take your time," like a parent overseeing a child trying to read a book or spell a word and Hank's tongue turns to butter in his mouth.

"I almost lost you." He spits out, "Your heart stopped. You went into a seizure in the kitchen and you stopped breathing and when we hooked you up to the respirator I thought we didn't make it in time and to think you could have _died_ from something as fucking _stupid _as tripping and falling and –," and Hank snarls, unfurling his gums to reveal a set of like pointed teeth and coils away, spilling his coffee all over the table and fleeing no doubt to the recesses of his lab and Alex can think of only one thing.

_**I**__ almost lost __**you**_**.**

**xiii.**

He finds himself rooted in front of Hank's lab door – three days later – chastising himself knock knock knock but he can't can't can't and it's aggravating enough to the point where he's considering actually blasting the door down (but he's in enough of a tough position as it is, he thinks, let's not add arson and possible murder to that list). For a moment, he wishes he had Charles' powers so he could merely _will_ Hank out of his scientific cocoon and stop being so damn vague and so...unfair, leading on then cutting off.

But then, he remembers, he hasn't been much better in the long run. "I got this." he whispers, "You're the m-man Alex, you c-can do this."

"What did you just say?" and no, Alex didn't just holler like a girl and well, he may have accidentally blasted a hole in the floor, but at least they're on ground level and nothing too serious would become of it – he hoped.

He spins: "Hank!" Hank averts his eyes and sighs, his hands balling into fists. "Please...," he mumbles with an upturned head, "Please don't let this be happening." and shoves past Alex into his lab, yanking the boy along with him. And Alex is yelling, "What!" but Hank lifts him up like he weighs nothing and props him on a gurney demanding: "Say your alphabet."

"What the hell, Hank!"

"_Say your alphabet_." He grits out and Alex submits muttering a-b-c-d-e-f-juh-juh-g before Hank slams his fists down in a rage, imprinting the table with the hollow of his hand. "No! Again!"

a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-kuh-kuh-k

"Again!"

a-buh-buh-b

And Hank's eyes well with tears as he barks, "Again!" at the same time Alex screams, "Stop it!" and everything comes crashing down.

"What do you want me to do?" Alex feels his head begin to throb and the energy within him stir violent-like, "What am I doing _wrong!_" Through his tears Hank laughs a not-funny-ha-ha sort of laugh and his fur mats underneath his eyes making him look like a deranged dog and he chokes out, "I'm such a fuck up. What kind of doctor am I if I can't even fix you!" And Alex swears, in a blink, he's sitting atop a throne of desolation and it's raining glass down upon him, slitting his cheek and littering his hair.

When Hank's tantrum dies down and he's laying in the midst of technological carnage, Alex floats off the gurney and is down by Hank's side, whispering, "What do you mean _fix me_?" His words are swallowed by a cold, nervous silence and Hank mumbles something along the lines of lasting brain damage and Alex's fingers clench in the fur on Hank's shoulder as his heart free-falls from his chest to his toes. "Hank...tell me everyt-thing."

Hank barks out another harsh laugh and sets his chin on his knees, looking to the world like a lost child. "When a person's brain hemorrhages, they'll either die or lapse into a coma." He swallows. "In your case, we were lucky enough that the hematoma wasn't large enough to kill you but – but I couldn't save you from gaining a speech impediment."

"So I'll talk funny! There's thuh-therapy, Hank! I'm still living, aren't I?"

"But that's not the point! With speech loss comes blackouts, with blackouts comes more seizures, more seizures more health problems and you'll die God damn it!" snarls Hank, raising a hand to swipe at Alex, before his breath hitch hitch hitches into frame-wracking sobs. "Look at me. I'm not even making sense...Some fucking doctor I am."

Alex's fingers scratch at his Hank's shoulder and lays his head down on his back, "You know...I don't think I've ever even huh-heard you swear that much." to which Hank purrs back as Alex's fingers thread deeper into the muscle. "I could be dead, rotting in some guh-gound right now, but I'm not Hank McCoy. And it's becah-cause of you."

And he means it.

**xiv.**

The days after the lab incident span without much of anything happening. Charles gently lifts his ban on Alex being confined to the house with training still being off limits and probably for the rest of the year, when he thought about it. But as Sean had put it c'est la vie and forget your troubles, you're lucky for now – and that was the truth.

Hank now, however, trails him like a shadow, making sure he's eating properly and staying well drugged with some prototype medication which Alex is pretty sure is just a placebo for pain killers, but he doesn't say anything. It's nice, for once, to be doted on but he can't help the nagging in the back of his head spitting it's out of guilt only out of guilt he's going to leave you; and he knows it's partly motivated out of guilt but with time he hopes to rectify that.

So they sit back out on the terrace where it all began, watching the leaves flit across the estate ground in all their colorful glory, dancing to some unseen beat, and it's hypnotic. It might be minutes, it might be hours, but at last Alex stands up and gestures: "Wanna go for a wuh-walk?" and Hank has no qualms as he trots beside him with a cup of hot chocolate. Their meanderings bring them to the edge of the lake (which, in reality, Erik told him it was just a run off: a storm-drain) and Alex stares out at it with eyes that demand answers from too many questions. So he speaks.

"Is this out of guilt?"

Hank takes small sips from his mug and looks at the clouds, obscuring the sun. "In the end... I don't think it is." He pauses. "A part of me blames myself for leaving you...well. But at the same time..." Hank knows he's not being coherent so he tries with: "You remember when you said that you bet I wished you were still in a coma?" and Alex flushes because yes, he remembers, but was unsure of even why he even said that. Hank inches closer, "There was a high percentage of you never waking up. Especially when your heart stopped at one point. You were just lying there with your eyes open and they were just so _cold _and you flat-lined and -," he stops to breath.

"I almost lost you." murmurs Alex. "You said that awhile after I woke up." He turns to stare back at the house and then at the lake and the forest abound it and inches closer to Hank so that their shoulders were touching. "What d-did you mean?"

Without hesitation Hank says, "Exactly what I said." and his claws caress Alex's inner arm and are enveloped in a warm fleshy hold. And it's not perfect, but it's a start.

**xv.**

They lay in bed two months later and watch the sun play games on the snow, alighting rainbows across the garden path which Hank's balcony windows open up to and Alex _knows_ he's never been more at peace with himself and the world. Claws graze his back with apprehension until Alex moves along with the rhythm of the touches and whispers, "Guh-good morning to you tuh-too." His stuttering is particularly bad in the morning, he notices, but he's so calm right now, he bets he wouldn't even throw a fuss if the room was on fire – okay well maybe.

He rolls over to face Hank with a soft smile and _his _big blue Beast smiles right on back at him, and so he thinks, okay well yes he stutters; yes, he'll no doubt have resulting health complications; yes, there are a lot of things he can't foresee or control but he's here now, and the now is quite serene and he wouldn't trade it for anything.

Hank kisses him slow and languid-like and Alex thinks well, it only took him two-hundred and one days.


End file.
